An analysis by the Guardian has found that there are only two black head chefs with a Michelin star in the UK. Across the 165 restaurants in the UK with the coveted award, only 12% of the head chefs are from a minority ethnic background; this despite the guide being dominated by restaurants serving international…

UK businesses in the hospitality and leisure sector could save at least £310m-a-year on their energy bills by adopting new energy technologies like solar panels and more efficient lighting. If just 50% of businesses in the sector adopted new energy technology it would boost UK economic growth by £3.7 billion GVA (Gross Value Added) and…

The government has announced a multimillion pound fund to support the development of innovative new packaging technologies that help reduce the use of single-use plastic. Businesses will be able to access up to £60m of funding for innovations such as new forms of packaging made from food waste that can produce environmentally-friendly plastic bags and…

Restaurants selling through Just Eat will have their official Food Hygiene Rating displayed directly on its website and app under new plans announced by the food delivery platform. The move follows talks with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH), and will begin with a trial of the initiative in…

Young people are shifting £1bn each year to online food delivery services, putting pressure on the business model of in-restaurant eating. Research by Planday, the workforce collaboration software company, found that a fifth of millennials say they go out less to restaurants now because they are getting food delivered that they would previously have gone…

A coalition of packaging industry stakeholders have joined forces to urge Michael Gove to fast-track plans for separate food waste collections as part of DEFRA’s new Resources and Waste Strategy for England. Organisations including Iceland, Vegware and Greenpeace are among over 40 stakeholders that have signed up to a letter, coordinated by the Anaerobic and…

Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) is aiming to put fish welfare on the sustainability agenda of consumers and businesses with the launch of a new campaign. The #RethinkFish campaign plans to raise general awareness of fish as sentient beings and tackle issues of welfare such as overcrowding and disease on intensive fish farms, and what…

Ten of the UK’s most senior medics have called on the government to ban preventative antibiotic group treatments in livestock. In a short letter, the experts warned that failure to enforce a ban “will result in the UK having some of the weakest regulatory standards for farm antibiotic use in Europe”. This could “seriously undermine…

The initiatives demonstrated in 2019’s Health & Vitality Honours programme have highlighted the advancement in attitudes to health, nutrition and wellbeing in the industry. We have again seen great strides made this year, demonstrating just how important this subject is to the industry and the acknowledgement of the level of responsibility that the sector has -…

The law requiring large employers to report their gender pay gap has been so successful that pay transparency should be extended to cover the ethnicity and disability pay gaps, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). The government introduced the requirement for large employers to report various data on their gender pay gap…